Remote work in Web3
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I graduated in Computer Engineering from Mumbai University in 2019. I was pretty young, just 21 years old. Many of my classmates took jobs in MNCs right out of college placements. College Placements in India are similar to what milk rounds are in UK. I practically think it is a very bad approach to taking up jobs. So I didn’t attend those placements. It is a pretty bullshit concept and I think this practice in India stems from a very colonial mindset rather than a progressive mindset.
After college, I started exploring different things I was interested in. I read about Blockchain and Web3 in “The Industries of the Future” book by Alec Ross. It was a great book. It gave a whole overview of all mind-blowing technologies. There were also examples of people working with ‘gene editing’ to cure Cancer! Such a great book that it changed the course of my whole life and the blockchain concept really clicked with me.
So I started working on my Full-Stack Developers skills and started reading up on Bitcoin and Ethereum. This was all done remotely, since I had no funds to go anywhere I just stayed at home. After that I started going to a Co-working space to work. I met some people who required some help with storing files on IPFS. I helped build a quick product for them. This was my first freelance job in Web3 as some sort of professional. Earlier years in my student life, I did do some freelance jobs but those were just usual and boring Web2.
After that I started my own personal project where I was working on building a reward system for the Web3. This was all done in my house remotely, since Covid-19 had taken the ugly route in our country. So I had to forcefully work remotely, otherwise I would have gone to some co-working space only. At that time, remote work was something I had not chosen personally, so it was quite stressful for me.
The Covid-19 lockdowns kept me in my room all the time, because of the extreme panic of contacting the virus. That fear and panic slowed my cognitive skills and I had hard time focusing on my work. This was in 2020. Even though 2020 went so bad for my health I still kept learning things Web3. In that period I built a working product for my personal project as well, and also started learning Rust, as I was very fascinated of building modular blockchain using Substrate and also implemented in my own project as well.
This is now year 2021. I started freelancing remotely as well on Upwork for Web3 Rust projects. I used Rust and built a Music NFT Marketplace for my client on the NEAR blockchain. This was the first big Web3 project I did! Also started working on making bot services using Rust for a client who wanted to build on the Bitclout Blockchain. That was a fun experience too. I interacted with clients from Europe, USA, Switzerland and also Russia. All just by sitting at my home. That was the most spectacular thing of it, that I can connect with people all around the world just by sitting on my chair.
After that I wanted to stop freelancing due to some personal issues. So I started hunting for a job in my city(not remote) for the position of Rust Web3 developers. After 2 months of searching, I realized nobody provides such jobs in my city and that’s why I applied for remote jobs. I got a job as a Rust Developer for a company located in the north side of India. Also this job is permanent work-from-home. The benefit of remote work is that it is location-independent rather than otherwise. I am the most happiest person while doing this job because it gives me benefits like
1. Working on Web3 (which I like)
2. Giving more time for my Family
3. Saving costs on travelling
4. Able to give sufficient time for my personal projects
In my job, I work on developing Solana Smart Contracts, which are written in Rust. So I am well acquainted with Phantom Wallets and the Solana Programming Model and other nuanced stuff of it.
When doing remote work, its important to have a good quality chair, so that your back doesn’t hurt even if you sit for excess of 10 hours. So I bought one of the most expensive gaming chair from Amazon and now I can sit for longer amount of time.
My workplace photo
Bed on the side provides some rest when I get a bit tired during working hours. I wouldn’t be able to do if I was going to an office to work. The gaming chair provides me comfort just like a wife would. The laptop you see is also a gaming laptop, so it has good RAM to survive from any remote location and I also have high-speed internet, but if I have to go outside of my house for workcations, I have to use my mobile internet which can cause some problems.
The biggest con of remote work is having limited social interaction, but that is compensated by making a lot of time for your friends and family on the weekends.
I don’t think there is any financial downside to working in a remote environment. You can choose the cheapest location in the world and still be one of the best Blockchain developers! I think I would be less stressed working in a remote environment as it saves a lot of my energy by not travelling lots of time. Earlier in my college life, I used to travel 3 hours, but now I use those 3 hours to read books, socialize and enjoy life.
I wear proper formal clothing to work everyday. It gets me in the ‘zone’. Otherwise if I wear casual clothes, I have a hard time concentrating on my work.
Working on web3 projects remotely helped me to build a new product for the Web3 gaming industry, with my personal project (Bramble). Guess what I found, my main guy, cofounder Nitesh, who took the idea to the next level, followed by Pramodaa. It also connected us with a guy Suvom who lives in Germany and is helping us build our brand. We all work remotely.
Overall, I am very happy with this life. I think I am gonna work the same way for the rest of my life!
